Friday, July 12, 2013

1. Noah Smith on how to make accurate predictions. Reminds me to put on record my confident prediction that Hillary Clinton is due for a market correction and a rough patch...uh, because the press hates the Clintons and will turn on her when they get a chance. How's that? If you would prefer, it's because the political culture is biased against women running for office.

All the Ginsburg talk strikes me as premature, as well as tacky. Why should she even bother to think about making a decision before sometime mid-2015? She'll have two more years of information about her health, and the likely political environment post-2016.

If I were her I wouldn't have much patience for these questions now either.

True, but it's not as if the environment under which her replacement will need to be confirmed is completely stable. The GOP could take the Senate in 2014 nuclear brinksmanship could grind things to a halt, or the economy/an actual scandal could drag Obama's approval down, or any number of other things could make replacing Ginsburg with as similar as possible of a jurist much harder in 2015 than in 2013.